EU Reaches Deal on Bank Supervisor

By

Gabriele Steinhauser And

Laurence Norman

Updated Dec. 13, 2012 12:12 p.m. ET

BRUSSELS—European Union finance ministers reached a landmark deal early Thursday that would bring many of the continent's banks under a single supervisor, in what governments hope will be a major step toward resolving their three-year-old debt crisis.

Ministers said the European Central Bank would start policing the most important and vulnerable banks in the euro zone and other countries that choose to join the new supervisory regime...